SC sets April 2020 deadline for BS IV vehicles

The Supreme Court Wednesday ordered a complete ban on the sale and registration of Bharat Stage IV (BS-IV) vehicles in the country from April 1, 2020.The Bharat stage emission standards was set by the government to regulate air pollution standards for vehicles.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta also ruled that only BS-VI vehicles will be allowed after the deadline. The Court has highlighted that environmental improvement is considerable when BS-IV and BS-VI fuels are compared.

“There can be no compromise with the health of the citizens and if one has to choose between health and wealth, keeping in view the expanded scope of Article 21 of the Constitution, health of the teeming millions of this country will have to take precedence over the greed of a few automobile manufacturers. The automobile manufacturers must behave responsibly. We expected that keeping in view our earlier order, they they would have themselves volunteered to be BS-VI compliant by 31.03.2020. Unfortunately, this has not been the case with some of the manufacturers and they want to stretch on the timeline by a few days or months for no other reason but to make a little more money”, the court said.